Welcome To India I

Hi there! These are a few blog entries from 2007. I seem to have lost or unpublished them, so I am re-publishing them here, because I think they are beautiful.


    
Welcome to India: India, Sept 2007, the first days.

The first day of our arrival was built upon the frenzy and excitement of getting ready, the endless flight through space and time to Delhi, and then a car ride from Delhi north to Rishikesh. Crammed six to a jeep, we had the luxury ride! The highways were amazing: villages alongside the road that look more like the sets of a puppet show in pastels and white... people sleeping in cots and cows causing traffic jams, men playing cards and drinking tea and smoking under low hanging lights next to the highway. We got caught in two traffic jams at 3 in the morning. Beautiful. Welcome to India. 

After settling into my home for the next two (three!) weeks, I met my teacher Candace, her teacher Anand, and our group at the banks of the Ganges River- the healing waters the locals call their Great Mother, the Mother Ganga. We did a meditation, and then were invited to dip our toes. The water was cool and delicious, a milky green rushing alongside the foothills of the Himalayas. I looked back at my group, wading in further and further. My heart was open, and ready... in that spirit, I dove under, completely submersing myself in the Great Mother. 

My mermaid self satisfied, I returned to the beach just in time for an explanation of what to do to prepare for that evening's puja: we would be doing a fire purification cermony on the banks of the river with Anand's family pundit. "Write down anything you wish to hand over to the river to take care of for you: anything you think you want, give it to god. Anything you don't want, give it to god. In short, write down everything you have keeping your ego and mind afloat, and give it up to the Ganga so that you might find peace in your heart. The rest will come in its own time." 

First day... I guess we weren't messing around! Over an amazing lunch, the first of many amazing Indian meals, and some sweet hot chai tea, I came up with a thousand items for a list. Then, I realized that ultimately, what I wanted most of all, the reason for my being in India in the first place, boiled down to just one thing. (What can I say? I was drinking boiled tea.) That was what I would write down on that piece of paper to give up in the fire purification ceremony. I would surrender it- take the risk of losing what I thought I was or am or ever will be- and put that in the heart of the river. It's really personal, or it felt deeply intimate; but after having had proven to me time and time again that the more I lose my ego the more I gain my heart? it's not so scary to say: I wrote down that I would give my life. 

That evening, around 6 pm, we walked as a group to the river. I was dead tired and falling over, hallucinating a little bit. I couldn't think straight or string words into sentences, at least not any sentences that made sense outside of my mind. I had been awake for years, I think, at that point, with no sleep. Candace told me that was a good thing, because it would leave me more open to receiving the ceremony. Honestly, I thought I should go back to the hotel and pass out, but i just couldn't do that to myself after having come so far. 

About twenty of us gathered at a broad flat area beneath the village where Anand's Pundit was preparing the ceremony with rice, orange dye, orange flowers, fire, apples, bananas, flowers, candies, dirt and incense. I tried to hide in back as the ceremony began (so I wouldn't offend anyone but falling asleep) but the Pundit chose me to help him alongside Anand, Candace, and Anand's mother during the ceremony. 

And it began: the pundit began creating a fire pit on the banks of the river and we helped. He would chant the mantra, and then I would throw more ghee, fire, dirt, wood, etc., as necessary into the fire. I couldn't tell you what the chant was, but Pundit would sing it 108 times, and after each chant within those 108 times, he would end with "Swaha" and we would toss more into the fire. As I tossed more and more dirt, flowers, ghee, candies, wood and rice into the fire, I focused on what I was willing to give to open my soul and my heart. I didn't know exactly why or what I was doing, but it didn't matter. Then, the Pundit came around and gave each of us a blessing, purifying each of us. 

We offered the fruit and flowers into the fire and then, one by one, approached the fire to offer our intentions in the form of what we had written down on the paper. I was in another world by this point, between the smell of the fires, and the incense, and the mysticism of the chanting, and the colors; the drumming and Hindi music carrying over the breeze from town, cooling off the heat of the day, the rush of the river; my heart the only energy keeping me afloat. I felt like I was no longer on earth but somehow both in the river and in the breeze, both in my body and outside of. 

I approached the fire and looked at my paper. Then, I pressed it to my heart, asked for help, truth and clarity, and threw it in. It burned into a spiral of smoke reaching up top the stars above.

I stared at the fire for what seemed like days. I have no idea how much time passed, but I felt like my body itself was being pulled into the fire. Suddenly someone shoved something into my hand. I looked at it.It was a piece of cake, white and clean and sweet. Anand's mother smiled at me. "Eat it," she said, a Hindi cadence. I put it in my mouth and nodded, coming back to earth a little, coming back into my body a little. And just like that, the ceremony was finished. 

I stared at the river for some time then, as the fire burned down. Some of our group returned to the hotel, but I stayed until the very end to help clean, and, really, because I just didn't want to leave the river yet... oh, yes, I would have three more weeks, which was a blink and a thousand lifetimes all at once, with this river... but just then, I was home...  welcome to India. Welcome home.